I mean, speculation on possible alternate universes in sport? When did this thing become a giant game of Dungeons and Dragons? Did he roll an octagonal die, or spin some sort of plastic arrow on a piece of cardboard to decide his club? And why can't we get alternate universe news all the time? "NEW YORK POSSIBLY DESTROYED BY HANDSOME MONKEY IN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE: SCIENTIST."

Apparently even Ronaldo knows he can't roll back the clock -- "I have gone down in history." Yeah, it's over. No time travel in our lifetime, no takesies-backsies. You won your little Ballon d'Or, your little Premier League trophy, your pathetic little European Cup. The dream of playing keep away in the six-yard box with a gang of seventeen year-olds is dead. You made your bed Ronnie, now lie in it, and make sure not to get too much Crisco on the linens.

And Ronaldo's not alone in revealing this bit of 'news.' Waltzing over to my new-found home of English-language Italian news, Channel 4's Italy page, I notice Torres was once on the verge of joining AC Milan. Apparently, by even considering signing for one of the top clubs in Europe, and then signing for another top club in Europe, he's shown his true colours. Expect a black-armed march to Anfield in the coming days.

And what great news for Milan! Torres must be a great strike partner for Inzaghi over in that alternate universe. I hear if you scroll through the dreggs of Justin TV, there's a magical station broadcast out of Oman that picks up feeds from the alternate universe where Roy Keane isn't so cheesed all the time. Manchester United were relegated in 2002.

1 comment:

This is brilliant, Richard. You've identified an entire genre of football stories that I'd never consciously thought about. I guess it only makes sense, given the eagerness with which the press reports things that unverifiably might happen in the future, that they'd have an equal share of interest in things that verifiably almost happened in the past.

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While this blog started in December 2007 as a mish-mash on everything from North American Football Fans (NAFFs) to the history of soccer in Toronto, it has recently morphed into a football blog about football blogs, and soccer media in general, with a focus on North America and Canada in particular. It was included in the middle of the Guardian's (arbitrary) list of 100 football blogs to look for in 2011, after James Dart clearly ran out of ideas.

"It turned you into a member of a new community, all brothers together for an hour and a half, for not only had you escaped the clanking machinery of this lesser life, from work, from wages, rent, doles, sick pay, insurance cards, nagging wives, ailing children, bad bosses, idle workmen, but you had escaped with most of your mates and your neighbours, with half the town, cheering together, thumping one another on the shoulders, swapping judgments like Lords of the Earth, having pushed your way through a turnstile into another and altogether more splendid life." J. B. Priestley

About

Richard Whittall writes on football from his hovel in Toronto, Canada. In addition to this site, he also writes the Canadian Soccer history blog, The Spirit of Forsyth. He is a regular contributor the Score's Footy Blog, Canadian Soccer News, and Brian Phillip's unsurpassed Run of Play. His writing has appeared in Toronto Life and the Globe and Mail, and he was a contributor for Brooks Peck's Yahoo! blog Dirty Tackle for the 2010 World Cup. He appeared once on Football Weekly as villasupportgroup.